6:23 PM
by Sovietkitty
Summary: Two months to the day have passed since Aki's sudden death. Mika, heartbroken, has given up on life. But this evening, her deceased friend visits her...


**Author's note : Hello ! It's been a long time since I've written about GuP. Well, I saw the movie and immediately got the inspiration for new stories. Depths is on hiatus but once I'll had ideas, I'll update it. I'm currently finishing some one-shots (like Dark Dreams) and I'm slowly coming back. I'm also writing a GuP x Fallout crossover that should be out soon. I do so many things at the same time, but I can manage almost them all.**

 **I won't lie to you... I teared up a few times while writing this OS about the Jatkosota students, and I did too while translating it. It's what I've been doing all night... writing it ! xD**  
 **Enjoy your reading. I advise you to play your favourite emotional music while you read. It gives... even more feels.**

* * *

Two months.

Two months since Mika was continually playing the same song on her kantele. Not the usual _Säkkijärven Polkka_. Another version of it, slower and melancholic. Sometimes, she played faster and faster as her urge to cry grew bigger and overwhelming, and stopped suddenly, put the instrument beside her, and started to scream, stifling her cry on a pillow and began to weep hysterically, then stayed for several hours in the dark, lying on her bed, sometimes playing repeatedly her sad melody. It was so unusual coming from her, someone who was usually so calm... Someone who was looking at life with philosophical eyes, someone who could be seen playing melodious tones anytime, someone who knew where to find hope and loved to share her wisdom. Since two months, she was no more than the shadow of herself. Where was the true Mika, which was representative of her true nature? Why was the other Mika here? The one who, since two months, locked herself in her room darkened by the curtains she didn't open since this horrible evening, the one who played her little song in a different tone, the one who was experiencing crying spells, the one who wasn't eating as much as before, the one who slept most of the day when she was not doing music?

She grabbed something on the bedside table, her eyes reddened, completely drowned and puffy. For two months, she regularly took this small thing in her hands, and stared at it for some time. Sometimes she pressed it against her heart. If she didn't, she did it with this little striped, blue and white scarf. There was still the comforting smell she was longing for. This woolly texture, this scent, what it meant: it was so precious to her, it was still a little bit of what was left to her.

Mika couldn't take her eyes off the photo in the frame. A memory of this year, a bit before the University vs Oarai match ended. It was on the boat, when they were sailing on the river. Mikko had stopped and and photographed them together. Aki smiled. Aki had such a bright look that day. Mika was posing, kantele in hand, Mika's eyes were shining with happiness. A good mood, a real positivity was emanating from this photograph. The frame's glass was broken: when she came home scarred for life, she threw it violently against a wall.

She whispered, her voice broken by the tears:

"Aki... why... why did they take you away...?"

* * *

 _Mika would always remember that evening when she felt the worst pain of her life. It was about 6 PM. She was reading a philosophical essay, laying down on her bed, when her phone rang. She put her book on the pillow and spent some time looking for her cellphone, not remembering where she left it, then saw that it was Mikko who called. She picked up._

 _"Yes, Mikko?"_

 _"Mika, you must come quickly. It's Aki. She had an accident."_

 _"It's Aki, she had an accident." She felt all her blood move down her body; she thought that she was going to faint. Everything collapsed around her. The world decomposed in a crash, in a shockwave, and her heart skipped a beat. She suddenly lost her breath. Mikko started worrying._

 _"Mika? Are you okay?"_

 _"Yes... I'll be right there."_

 _She grabbed her hat, put it quickly on her head, ran down the stairs, failed to fall more than once, and continued into the street. The assistance, although Aki was already being taken care of, just started to go away. Mika noticed a spot on the road. A big, strangely-shaped spot. Was it black? Was it brown?... It was red. Red like juice coming from the crushed cherries. Red like the roses which symbolized a burning passion... Red as the blood of the one who had just got0 struck by a car._

 _When she arrived at the hospital, Mikko was in the waiting room._

 _"We can't see her yet. They're doing everything they can to save her. I don't have a good feeling..." the reddish-haired sighed._

 _"I beg you... Aki, please, hold on," Mika repeated softly, increasingly stressed._

 _She already knew what was going to happen, but convinced herself she was wrong. She didn't want to face the truth. She suddenly got up and went to the bathroom after having told Mikko._

 _There, she passed water on her face and looked at her reflection in the mirror. Her light brown eyes were revealing how scared she was. Several times, she washed her face with cold water. She didn't know for how long she was there already. She thought she felt her phone vibrate ; it didn't, actually. She glanced at the time: 6:23 PM.. Just a few minutes later, Mikko pushed and opened the door._

 _"Mika..." she whispered, her eyes telling a lot about what had happened._

 _A few words were enough. Mika bursted into tears. She let herself fall in Mikko's arms and started crying her heart out. It was too much for her. Way too much. The world continued to fall around her while her pain went out almost hysterically. She was holding firmly her friend's sleeve with her fingers while she was almost exhausted from sobbing._

 _Back at home, she threw her hat on the bed. Her eyes immediately came across one of the latest things in her room. The frame on the bedside table. She grabbed it and threw it violently against the wall. A shattering sound was heard : the glass was broken. Then, she fell on her covers, unable to contain her tears more than she had done while coming home, and continued to scream, to cry, to cry from the despair and pain that ran through all her body. It was like being stabbed in a thousand places at once: the pain was taking over her guts. She had a retch and barely had time to reach the toilet to throw up what remained of tea and piece of cake she had eaten a few hours earlier. Once relieved, she rinsed her mouth and went back to her room. She didn't even want to see any light, broken by what she had just experienced, and she closed the curtains. She couldn't believe it. Aki. Her closest friend. Aki was dead, and dead forever. She would never be back again. Mika would never see her innocent smile, her beautiful green eyes that always looked at her with immense tenderness, she wouldn't have the same happy feeling to participate in training and tournaments with her, she would never hear her voice anymore, she would never feel this smell again..._

 _She noticed something near her bed. A blue and white scarf. The scarf worn by Aki just before her last moments. She had removed it and put it there, feeling too hot with it. Mika grabbed it and squeezed it against herself, breathed her scent, this fragrance that would soon be no more..._

* * *

Mika kept looking at the picture. She had been lucky, she didn't hurt herself with the broken glass while she was picking the small pieces up. Her heart ached so badly. She felt guilty for having let Aki going out that evening. She should have gone instead. Her friend would have survived. Perhaps Mika would have died, but Aki would have lived and that idiot wouldn't have hit her and killed her before running away. She didn't even have the strength to cry more. Her sobs had stopped from exhaustion. She had a mad desire to sleep. Just sleep. She just wanted to fall into an eternal sleep, never to wake up again. She wanted to join her Aki, even if it meant leaving Mikko. Right, what was Mikko able to do for her? Nothing! She couldn't bring Aki back! She it was useless! It had been a while since she hadn't responded to her messages. The last time she had received one, she simply replied _"Please leave me alone for a moment"_ and had turned off her phone. She even stopped caring about her household. She stopped thinking about it. The dust accumulated, but it was no more important. Her small flat wasn't dirty after all. It just needed some vacuuming. Not much. This was not a priority.

She looked at the time on the alarm clock and thought she was going to faint.

6:23 PM.

Two months to the day since Aki was gone. 6:23 PM, it was the time when they pronounced her death. The time they stopped trying to bring her back : there was no chance to save her, the brain was ruined. The shock was enough to destroy it. Her heart was still beating until the last time it stopped, five minutes before 6:23 PM, but she was brain-dead. The trauma was very violent. And two months ago at 6:23 PM, life had stopped for Mika. Nothing made sense to her anymore. She enjoyed nothing. Even playing the kantele had become a habit and a ritual rather than a real pleasure. Basically, she had lost all interest in life and anything else. And this since two months. Two months. Two months, and again two months, at 6:23 PM. It all came back in a loop in her head. She thought so slowly, she no longer had the same alertness before, as if her brain shrunk the instant Aki died.

She began to daze off, the scarf against herself, the frame in her hand, her kantele behind her, when a slight glow shone before her. A gentle heat caressed her hands. That damn sun again! When would it stop shining through the curtains? She slowly opened her eyes and...

this was not the sun. Mika had to shake her head once or twice before realizing that she wasn't dreaming.

Aki was here. Ghostly, glowing, but she was there. She was beautiful in this form. Her body looked almost tangible, while the ends of her limbs were gradually more transparent. She was intensely looking at Mika with her apple-green eyes. A small smile on her lips, she murmured:

"Hi, Mika."

The latter wasn't able to answer. She was tempted to jump impulsively into her arms, but knew she would only encounter dead air. She slowly arose, her body shaken by sobs without shedding tears, and looked sadly at her.

"Aki... you have to come back... I need you", she gasped.

"If I could... I'd do this", the little blonde girl sighed. "I would be so happy to be there again..."

"I left Mikko, I can barely eat, I'm sleeping all day..."

"I know... I can see what happens, Mika..." the spirit continued. "I see how horrible and guilty you feel, and how you are no longer like yourself..."

She sat on the bed in front of her depressed friend.

"But you have to live... Don't let yourself die. I may have had a shorter life, but this is not a reason for yours to be shorter as well..."

"I have nothing more to do here, Aki," Mika whispered, devastated. "Since you left, I'm feeling so bad..."

"Don't worry... nothing more can happen to me. I watch over you and Mikko, and I can tell you she's not in the best of her states, especially when she knows that you have left her out... "

"Mikko, Mikko, what is she able to do for me after all?"

Aki put her hands on her friend's shoulders.

"Mika," she said in a firmer voice than usual. "Mikko's worried about you. She is afraid that you abandoned her definitely. Yet I know you can come back to her. You have to accept the fact I'm dead now, and you have to move on.."

She continued after some seconds of silence.

"Life will not be the same, you will also have someone else driving the BT-42 with you, but... I'm still here, somewhere in your heart. I'm no longer physically with you, but I'll always be there no matter what. "

Mika began to calm down.

'You know I'd rather see you move on than see you cry...", Aki said softly. "You're not like that. You are much stronger, and you will be what you were again. You will the kantele with pleasure again, you'll represent our club with pleasure again, and youl'll recite your proverbs with pleasure again. Feel better, move on and it will be okay. Unfortunately, I already belong to the past... "

"How can I do for accepting your loss? Tell me what I can do..." she whispered.

"Come back to Mikko... Maybe you'll have to cry together, but it will always be better. If you go to visit my grave, try not to feel too bad. Try to turn the page together. You'll have each other, it will be better, and you'll soon enjoy life like you did. It will help you. Trust me."

"But... I was so cold with her lately... Who knows if she'll forgive me."

"She'll forgive you, I'm more than sure of this," the blonde replied. "Mikko loves you a lot. She'll understand. Believe me, it will be easier once you'll have come back to her."

Aki hugged her. Mika felt a pleasant warmth go through all her body, much different from the pain she felt lately. She wanted to stay like this forever, in her deceased friend's embrace, as if it told her that there was still hope she would be coming back... but it had been two months since it was over, and she had to overcome this infernal pain that was poisoning her.

"I want you turn your cell on and send her a message, take a good shower, take a deep breath and go to see her," the green-eyed whispered gently.

Mika nodded. She took the phone she hadn't touched for at least a week, selected her friend in her contacts and wrote her a long message in which she apologized for her behaviour and proposed her to see each other. The answer came immediately. A smile of hope and relief lit her lips and her eyes brightened.

"Be okay, Mika... and don't forget that I will always be there for you. Look at the sky tonight, concentrate on the most beautiful star you can see and think of me. I'm your star, now. "

One last time, Aki leaned over her and hugged her for a long time. Then, she took a few steps back.

"Goodbye Aki, my Aki..." Mika murmured.

"I'm your star now, don't forget this..."

A light illuminated the room briefly before everything went off in a twinkling. Even if Mika was still sad, she finally found the strength to get up and open the curtains. The brightness outside, although weaker because of the falling night, dazzled her. She hadn't seen it since two months. Her heart felt lighter now. A simple interaction with Aki's ghost was enough to bring her faith in life back.

She murmured a Finnish proverb that came immediately to her mind:

 _"Even a small star shines in the dark."_

She smiled. It was a sign she was going to be herself again. She walked to the bathroom, and when she had finished showering, getting ready and finishing what she had to do, she left her home.

 _"I'm coming, Mikko."_


End file.
